Its so noisy you get used to the all the plains, trains and cars. Were right off the highway and the plains always fly over head going to logan airport. I think every 20 minutes a train runs by during the day.

I was under the impression that it happened at River Works.
I was on the train, and we were literally 200 yards from Riverworks when it happened. I've never heard of Oak Island.

That was the longest commute ever. I am very very sad for the Engineer of the southbound train. I'm very proud of the staff on our train for keeping us informed and cool. I had a talk with the conductor in our car between Ipswich and newburyport (where i exit) and he said it's not his first time with a person vs. train incident. He thanked us all for being so patient. It was a nice little mutual admiration society moment at the end there.

I live on Oak Island; it's halfway between Winthrop and Nahant, on the Route 1A causeway. The trains go by very fast but I almost never hear them because they don't sound a warning horn at the Oak Island Street crossing.

Adam didn't report that the guy was talking on a cell phone, he reported that Chelsea Minton said that the guy was talking on a cell phone.

As a society we are losing our understanding of a lot of the basics of journalism, which is too bad, because its one of the things we (the USA) has historically done quite well compared to the rest of the English-speaking world.

I heard every single second of what transpired. Was also the first person to see the poor guy.. My house is 50 some feet away from the tracks and It's absolute bullshit that the trains running through my residential neighborhood are allowed to blow 70mph (not exaggerating) right through the damn place.

He was a good kid. Damn shame they didn't learn the first time years ago when the child passed..

speed for commuter rail trains, and it's attained only on certian parts of the system. But I agree with you - the real problem here is idiots who feel they are too self-important to actually wait for a train to pass.

Yes, its the max for the T (though NEC trackage is up to a higher standard so theoretically with new equipment they could go higher), but I meant commuter rail in general. E.g. MARC in MD runs at 125 mph on the Penn Line.

79 is the Federal limit for passenger trains without cab signals. But most MBTA lines have cab signals, and I believe they'll all need them along with automatically-enforced emergency stops for running a signal because of a new mandate.

And the speed limit on the Providence line (at least for Amtrak trains) is already way higher than 79 -- it's 150 in places.

During my commute into Boston this morning the train slowed down and sounded its horn. Maybe this unfortunate death has prompted a change in policy? We'll see if it continues. I can imagine the horns must be annoying for the neighborhood, but an accident like this is worse.

Not to belittle someone's death, but if someone is not paying attention and actively ignores crossing gates that are down and walks into the path of a train, and then gets hit by a train, that is no accident.

And even after that there are still dumba$$ pedestrians and drivers who try to beat the train

Probably because it comes to a complete stop.

It seems like a relatively easy and cheap solution to help prevent some of these deaths would be to put gates like I've seen in other countries, where the gate comes down on both sides of the roadway, and there are little thingies that hang off the bottom and go all the way to the ground (hinged gate extensions) so you'd have to literally climb over the gate to get across the tracks once the gate is down, instead of just walking around it. Seems like that would be a relatively low-cost way to deter all but the most determined pedestrians and avoid death (and massive inconvenience for train riders) so I don't expect we'll see it instituted in Massachusetts in our lifetimes.

A quick browse through the FRA's database shows that Oak Island Road is a 24 hour "Quiet Zone" but it does not have quad gates (what you call "gates on both sides of the roadway") or any other supplementary safety mechanism. My assumption here is that this is a grandfathered quiet zone. The FRA is actually quite hardass on new quiet zone requirements these days, and typically requires very heavy investment in each crossing. This incident may trigger a review of the quiet zone status and force the community to invest several hundred thousand dollars in safety treatments to restore the quiet zone.

this incident (and the previous one) will prompt the FRA to permanently recind the existing quiet zone at this location. Which would be a very good thing - quiet zones are determintal to safety and should be completley abolished.

As for "forcing the community" to spend the money for the safety upgrades, if the community truly believes the quiet zone is necessary (despite the fact that NO quiet zone is actually necessary), then the community SHOULD be required to spend the money for the upgrades. Also, they should be required to agree to ideminfy the railroad of all liability should an accident happen in the future - unfortuantely, that's not a requirement of the FRA rules yet.

High Street and Canal St. Crossings are both pretty bizarre these days - not because people got hit, but because old men kept playing "beat the train" to comic effect and people pitched fits when they tried to end the quiet zones.

There used to be a right turn cut-off lane from Playstead onto 60 Westbound that would get jammed at rush hour. When a speeding DownEaster came perilously close to punting a garbage truck into the Dunks (now there's a vivid thought!) it was redesigned.

the Town put in a raised divider (but not quad gates) at the MBCR crossing, to preserve a grandfathered quiet zone (they put a similar divider at the crossing at Prospect Street and re-configured the crossing at Chestnut Street so traffic can no longer cross the tracks coming east on Chestnut). Because there is a small strip shopping center in the northeast quadrant of the Broadway crossing, they also put a "Right Turn Only" sign at the track end of the easterly divider, facing the driveway for people exiting from the shopping center.

Passing through there early one evening, I noticed that the "Right Turn Only" sign had been hit, so it was now facing traffic on Broadway instead of the driveway. Fortunately, nobody actually followed the sign and turned right onto the tracks. Went back there the next day before dark to get a picture, but the Town had already removed the sign - and it was never re-installed.

Studies show jay-walking increases as traffic speed decreases.The same will be true for trains and people trying to beat them. Cars, trucks, and buses do not stop on a dime either.

The fundamental rule is that people assume the level of risk that they are comfortable with. Try to make things safer, and if taking more risk serves them in some way, some will take that risk. You really can't fight and beat human nature easily.

Since trains already stop at Mass Ave and wait for a gap in traffic, I wish they'd make it an "exempt" crossing, so T buses wouldn't have to stop and open the door. It's really frustrating riding a bus that waits at a red light at Vassar, and then hits a red at Albany because of the stop at the train track.

MBTA trains blow through residential neighborhoods at 70 mph throughout the eastern half of the state. Would you propose to reduce them to 35 mph wherever there is a neighborhood (probably 50% of their route miles) and double travel times? Or would you propose that a person (allegedly) talking on their phone should heed the flashing lights, ringing bells from the gates, the gates themselves, and the ringing bell on the train? It's a tragic accident, but that doesn't mean that it was the fault of the train for moving at the speed that they do almost everywhere.

It is T PD's responsibility, but I suppose any local or state police agency has authority to make a trespassing arrest. Or, at the very least, I guarantee they'll shoo them off. Usually, trespassers are gone by the time an officer shows up.

This likely seems irrelevant, however. From the sounds of it, this person tried to beat the train and lost. I've waited for the gates before, trust me. Trains blow through fast enough that there is NO REASON TO TRY TO BEAT THE TRAIN.

I feel like if the threat of "you might get squished by a train" isn't enough to discourage people from wandering around on the tracks or crossing them when gates are down or whatever, the threat of "you might get arrested for trespass" is a pretty toothless one.

I am from Oak Island. Both of these accidents are so tragic. But, I've heard a lot of people blame the speed. I have heard a lot of people blame the gates. This accident and the one prior have nothing to do with those things. These people crossed the tracks, while the gates were down, after one train had passed, without any concern for trains coming the other way. No matter what you do in this situation, people will be killed. The gates are down for a reason. Even if they are STUCK. They are down because those are TRAIN TRACKS and TRAINS TRAVEL ON THEM. Don't ignore the gates and you stay safe. Ignore the gates and horrific things happen. So sad.

I lived on Oak Island for a number of years, and crossed that track from 2007 to 2012 without incident, except during rain or snow...the rubber on the road where you walk is slippery, and I fell a few times however I wasn't crossing when the gates were down. I am sorry to hear that a second fatality has happened in that neighborhood. It is a close knit neighborhood. I will say that I have watched cars drive around the gates instead of waiting for them to raise, and more than once I watched kids ride their bikes across the tracks while the gates were down...you can tell people until you are blue in the face, and they are never going to listen. I am not sure who the young man is but if he is a neighborhood boy, it is going to hurt for sometime, and I hope that people pay attention, and put the stupid cell phones away.

The accident last night didn't even happen after one train had passed - it happened at the first train passing, so the gates had just gone down and the person was clearly just trying to beat the train. I was on the outbound train that was about to cross paths with the inbound train that struck him, and there weren't any other trains in either direction before that inbound that struck him. obey the gates and flashing lights, people! Accidents like this are tragic and completely avoidable. If the trains are moving so fast, it means it won't take long for it to pass and then you can safely cross.

Then it's possible he saw your train approaching and thought he had plenty of time to cross, not realizing another train was coming from the other direction. It's too bad the crossing signals don't indicate the direction of the train they're responding to, with an additional signal when two trains are approaching from both directions.

... who has never made a stupid mistake that but, for a little good luck or the grace of God might have been fatal, please continue to bash the victim here, publicly, where his friends and family, struggling to come to terms with what has happened, might turn for a little information. I'm sure they will find your insightful observations helpful in their time of grief.

Commenting on this tragedy might bring the attention to the issue that would prevent the next death. I imagine their grief is so profound that comments here don't really make a dent either way. I suspect they are thinking many of the same "what ifs" we are.

If we should cease to comment because there are those who might be saddened, then there is no topic that *can* be commented on and the internets should just shut down. But that's not how we as human beings work. We process tragedy by examining it, try to discern if it could be prevented, and therefore assure our own sense of safety.

If you read "The Right Stuff", there's extensive discussion of pilots' behavior after a fatal crash: they close ranks against the deceased, dismissing his piloting skills as having been inadequate. In part, it's a psychological defense mechanism: "That couldn't have happened to me, because I'm not a moron." While it may be satisfying, it's not remotely helpful, and it's pretty hard on the friends and family of the victim.

On the other hand, when engineers and safety experts do post-accident examinations, especially when looking at patterns of accidents, an entirely different analysis arises: "Yeah, that was a dumb mistake, but look at this: People make that particular dumb mistake on Runway 27R with ten times the frequency that they make it on Runway 27L. What's going on? Is the procedure too complex? Is there some visual illusion at play? Yeah, almost all accidents are "pilot error," but to stop at "stupid pilot shouldn't have done that." misses the lives that could be saved by figuring out what it is that leads to task saturation, misperception, failure of situational awareness, etc.

So in this case, it's obviously an error to be on the tracks when a train is coming. You have a choice: you can either point out that the victim was an idiot, or you can look into what changeable factors might have led to him making that unfortunate mistake. Layout of the crossing? Signs? Public awareness campaign? (I personally remember one crossing in Ohio, years ago, with a big sign that said, "Are you sure there's only one train?????")
... Discuss what is wrong with the crossing, or with signage, or with operating procedures, or what is lacking in people's awareness of the dangers of crossing the tracks, or propose a public awareness campaign. Any of those things would be helpful.

It should be pretty obvious that I wasn't complaining about the search for explanations; I was complaining about the comments that the victim was an idiot.

You were sounding very logical and persuasive until you blamed this incident on the crossing rather than the victim.

The only improvements to that crossing that could prevent something like this from happening is to close the road and build a 15-ft concrete wall along the tracks. No change in layout of the crossing, no additional signs, and no public awareness campaign could have prevented this. As unfortunate as it sounds, it really does just come down to sheer stupidity.

You, on the other hand, seem to know a great deal about the individual's state of mind, the exact conditions surrounding the incident, and, most remarkably, what sorts of things do or do not tend to successfully influence public behavior. Never mind that people who actually do this kind of work for a living often reach surprising and counter-intuitive conclusions about what does and does not work.

I don't agree that posters in this thread are "bashing" the victim. However, people always want to know how did the tragedy occur. It's a reminder to everyone about the nature of trains and the importance of paying attention to crossing signals. Furthermore, by calling it a "stupid mistake", you, yourself are bashing the victim. We don't know why Mr. Maldonado crossed the tracks when he did.

Today, the trains are sounding their horns at the crossing; each time I hear it, I think of him.

I stopped reading the comments, .. A young man lost his life & his family, friends are greiving..shame on you for the insensitive comments.. Some day this could happen to your loved one, may he rest in peace , & sincere condolences to his family & friends.,

By the girl who lost her little b... (not verified) on Sun, 11/17/2013 - 11:34pm

You know what you insensitive bastards... who gives a Fuck about common sense... a human life was lost... and if it was you who was dealing with the loss... you sure as hell wouldn't be talking about common sense... learn what compassion is or don't put in an input concerning the loss of a life... my name is Sheryl... and you can all rot in hell for all I care!!!

That was my brother not a cat or a dog! That was a amazing kid a artist a father a son. If it was ur brother ur son, you would not be saying that. I see stupid kids every day make mistakes I see old Fucks make the same mistake over And over. Am just saying instead of saying how he was a idiot. We could say hey how can we prevent this from happening again to some one else soon brothers a little kid! And yes we are humans and is in ur nature to Want to find logic on how this happen and what was the person state of mind was, to think is a good idea to cross. Well that's like going to some one funeral who die of cancer and saying Well they should have not pick up a smoke. And how they Where idiots for it. But just as much as is in our behavior to wonder how some thing happen and talk about it and say how this person was a idiot. We do have a more powerful nature to us and that's compassion.